“My wipers? Do they know that it will kill whatever they are viewing the files on after the timer is up?”
“They do.”
“Oh, well, all right then that’s good. Just send me the address of who you want me to send it to and I’ll get that right over to them.”
“Thank you,” I said with a sigh, my shoulders releasing the tension that I hadn’t even realized had been gathering ever since my phone rang twenty minutes ago. “Also: no more video games on the clock.”
“Yes, boss!” Finneas squeaked before the line clicked off, leaving me with a nasty headache and silence.
“Rhodes!” I called, forgetting for a moment that it was his day to take Perrie to school.
One glance at the clock told me that she must be in her photography class right about now and I was once again regretting that our morning in bed couldn’t have ended with me in between her legs while I watched her wrap her plump little lips around Rhodes’ cock again.
It had become a favorite position of mine ever since we came together that night in the hotel and I was starting to wish that I really was some random bird farmer somewhere far away with nothing better to do than be with my pack.
Rubbing my temples to try and ward off the impending migraine, I called the next person on my mental list. “Oona.”
The housekeeper had been hovering worriedly all morning ever since she brought me news of the explosions, so it didn’t surprise me when she stepped through the doors of my study within seconds. “Yes, Master Edison?”
“I need you to get me a report on what each of the older members have been up to in the past forty-eight hours. Do it your usual way.”
Oona, while being a fine housekeeper and a permanent fixture in the Keane Mansion for over thirty years, was also well versed in many other things. Namely espionage.
The employees who worked in the other households were mostly hand picked by her without the branch heads even knowing about it.
“Of course, anything I should be looking for in particular?”
“Strange phone calls, meetings, and the usual indicators of plans going on behind the scenes. I need to know if they’ve had any contact with the other four families too.”
I knew that there was legitimate business happening between my people and those of the other families, but there had to be something off. A thread I could pull to unravel all of the bullshit and figure out just who was fucking with me.
Oona nodded, folding her hands in front of her as she seemed to be making a mental checklist. “I’ll get right on it, sir.”
“Thank you.” I slumped into my chair and squeezed my eyes shut, trying to sort through all of the new information I’d learned, categorizing it and turning it over in my head like a Rubik’s cube that I couldn’t make match up.
“Sir?” Oona’s voice cut through my mental puzzlement and I realized she hadn’t left yet.
Opening my eyes, I found her standing just on the other side of my desk.
“I know it isn’t my place, but may I offer some advice?”
Oona was never one to overstep her boundaries, but seeing as she’d been the one to take care of me in place of my mother, I never minded. “You know you can.”
“Your father, may he rest in peace, lost a lot of his power during his time as the head of the Keane clan. It was something your grandfather warned him against, but after the war, in order to rebuild the family, he made many concessions to the heads of the branch families allowing them to grow in power.”
“I know that,” I told her with a frown. “What’s your point?”
Oona’s lips twisted, like she wasn’t sure she wanted to say her next words. “You have at least one young man from each of the branch families who is loyal to you. Wouldn’t it make sense to push for them to take over their families seeing as the youngest branch head is pushing sixty-five?”
“How am I supposed to do that without them revolting?”
It was what I’d been fighting against for the past two years and she was practically telling me to give in to it.
“Sometimes,” she said mysteriously. “You have to engage in smaller battles in order to avoid an all-out war. This family is at a turning point, Master Edison, and I worry for you and Rhodes and Perrie if you don’t acknowledge that something needs to finally happen in order for the Keane clan to survive to create another generation.”
Her words echoed my own nightmares that I’d been having since the night of the college party Perrie ended up at.
By not acting, I was putting her in more danger and I couldn’t allow my omega to be hurt. It went against the very grain of my instincts.